Cyberborders and the Right to Travel in Cyberspace

The chapter takes as its starting point the existence of nation state borders and their relevance to the internet. In the offline world national borders range in porosity as regards both people and information. The chapter considers the types of cross-border legal rule that tend to encourage open or porous, rather than closed or solid, borders on the internet. It examines rules such as country of origin, country of receipt and targeting from the perspective of people's ability to 'cybertravel' beyond their home country and, as when they do when they travel physically, to access information created under other legal regimes. It concludes by asking whether in our attempts to preserve nation state borders we are at risk of creating not just borders but Berlin Walls in cyberspace